Huckabee campaign shakes up GOP

Press Photo/Emily ZoladzSteve Nortier of Grand Rapids hands out signs in support of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Thursday night at Suzie's Cafe.

A few short months ago, it was Mike Who?

Early in the GOP presidential race, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was best known as the quirky, guitar-playing pastor who had shed 100 pounds. Political experts brushed him off as something of a joke, confident he would be swept aside by the true heavyweights.

They're not laughing now.

His populist grassroots campaign is shaking up the national GOP race and in Michigan, tapping into support from Christian conservatives and blue-collar voters like Chad Hall.

Hall, 32, a union factory worker, considers himself a Christian.

But Hall was drawn to Huckabee as much for his affable personality and his proposal for a national sales tax as for his stand on social issues.

"He seems like a real person. He seems like the high school principal," said Hall, who planned to cheer Huckabee on in person at a 9:30 a.m. rally today at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids.

HUCKABEE FACT SHEET

Mike Huckabee: The former Arkansas governor could be the wild card in Tuesday's GOP primary.

Age: 52

Born: Hope, Arkansas

Religious background: Baptist preacher, pastor of several churches in Arkansas

Political: Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. Signed into law 3-cent increase in gas tax and 4-cent increase in diesel tax to rebuild roads. Opposes abortion and gay marriage. Supported bill to make some illegal immigrants eligible for scholarships. Time Magazine voted him one of top five governors in 2005

Conventional wisdom says Michigan should be a showdown between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain. Huckabee would be the one getting the table scraps of third.

But this has not been a year for conventional results.

One recent Lansing poll found Huckabee leading in Michigan, with 23 percent to 22 percent for Romney and 18 percent for McCain. A Huckabee win, unlikely as it seems, would be crippling for McCain and Romney.

Beyond that, it would rattle a GOP political establishment worried a Huckabee candidacy would doom the party to defeat in the fall.

Lansing political analyst Bill Ballenger still rates McCain and Romney the favorites. But he is not ready to write Huckabee off, either. The one-time Baptist preacher with a penchant for one-liners has struck a chord with voters who may see McCain as weary and Romney as plastic.

"It is entirely possible he could win this," Ballenger said of a campaign that has gone a long way with little money and just a skeletal campaign structure.

Ballenger said the GOP establishment is "already having fits" over the Huckabee campaign.

"I think there will be an effort to coalesce behind somebody that isn't Huckabee," he said.

Dozens of Huckabee supporters filled a Grand Rapids cafe Thursday night to share coffee, doughnuts and strategy, each of them getting copies of "New Man," a Christian magazine with Huckabee on the cover.

Many said this is the first time they felt inspired to join a political campaign.

Kentwood resident Steve Hoven, a 33-year-old Internet salesman, has been putting in volunteer work for Huckabee for months.

"I've probably spent way too much time on this campaign," he said.

"I'm a social conservative first. I look through that prism first. He definitely hit on all the aspects that I wanted on that."

But Hoven also likes Huckabee's backing of the Fair Tax, a proposal to scrap the federal income tax and replace it with a national 23 percent sales tax. Critics say it could hurt middle-class taxpayers, lead to tax cheating and force deep spending cuts.

Hoven is "excited" about his tax proposal and his plan to achieve U.S. "energy independence" by the end of a second term.

"He's outside the box of a few different things," he said.

Huckabee gets a thumbs-down from conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh, who accused the campaign of "trying to dumb down conservatism in order to get it to conform with his record."

Others say Huckabee is not a true fiscal conservative, noting he raised gas and diesel taxes in Arkansas.

There are other concerns.

If he wins the nomination, he is sure to come under fire for commuting the sentence of a rapist who subsequently assaulted and murdered a woman in Missouri. Opponents note his lack of foreign policy experience, pointing to his admission last month he was unaware of the National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran was not trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a McCain supporter, insisted Friday during a West Michigan campaign swing that Huckabee can't win a general election.